Page 160 - Speedhorse, February 2019

LAYING THE FOUNDATION
Susan’s work ethic undoubtedly derived from growing up on her parents’ Jack Smith Farms in Tilbury, Ontario, Canada, and watching her dad raise Paint horses while running his fuel company.
As a youth, she and her brother, Mark
Smith, who runs the family fuel business since their dad retired, showed the family’s Paints in halter, pleasure, showmanship, trail and English pleasure. She won the high-point all-around on her 2-year-old filly Dun Up Lucky, out of Dun Delight QH, the only Paint in the Open Futurity.
For five years in the early ’90s, Susan made the Ontario equestrian team when Canada was trying to get the Western horse into the Olympics. She competed in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec, then the finals in Toronto, winning gold in trail with her Paint horse Rio Bingo, by Bingo Bonanza and out of Missy Leo Rio, and winning the high-point youth each year.
Around 1991, when she was 19, Susan and Mark got into barrel racing. “It just went from there,” Susan says.
as an owner.
About five years later, she “jumped the border,” as she calls it, to the United States, moving about two miles down the road from the now-defunct Great Lakes Downs in Muskegon, Michigan, on Lake Michigan’s eastern shore. “There just aren’t enough horses [in Tilbury] — I’m too horsey!” she says of her move.
During the day, she worked in a life insurance office. Then after work, she’d go home, saddle up her barrel horse, haul him to the racetrack and pony for the evening. “The barrel racing and showing went out the window then,” Susan says. “There was just no time for it.”
It was at Great Lakes Downs that she met Denny, who was shoeing there and working the starting gates. “We just pretty much hit it off right off the bat,” Denny says. “There’s not much she can’t do with a horse. I never thought she’d be in the racehorse business, though. She swore she’d never own a racehorse — but here we are!”
She ponied for close to 15 years, moving to El Paso around 2005. Then, a couple of years ago, she quit ponying full time and took on the job as John’s assistant. The last few years she ponied, she rode her youth futurity horse’s (Dun Up Lucky) overo colt, Lucky Bar Code.
FORTUITOUS INJURIES
Susan’s first racehorse was Fear This Feature, by Feature Mr Jess and out of First Regards by First Place Dash. After she bought him in 2009, the Carl Draper-trained gelding ran second in
a 550-yard allowance in Ruidoso and won a 550-yard allowance at Zia Park in Hobbs, New Mexico. “We ran him twice to try to make back what we paid for him,” she says. He ended his career with $77,769 in racetrack earnings, then “retired” to the barrels.
2012 Champion 2-Year-Old
Filly PJ Chick In Black was Susan’s first stakes winner
156 SPEEDHORSE, February 2019
Susan ponied horses for close to 15 years before working as John Stinebaugh’s assistant.